x generation
by BenedictX
Summary: AU X-Men fanfiction series, a reboot that begins in media res, but all details will be filled in as we go along. Be here for the X-Men's news beginning. The world has changed and it's more dangerous for mutants than ever, can Xavier resurrect the dream?
1. xgeneration 1 The Powers that Be part 1

**X-Generation #1        _THE POWERS THAT BE_**

PART 1 -- ALL TOGETHER NOW

One Year Ago 

            "Scott, you have to do it. Now, while I'm in control."

            Scott stares at Jean. Not Phoenix, Jean. The flames have gone, the avatar defeated for a moment by the strength of his beloved. But only for a moment.

            They both know that.

            "Jean, don't ask me to do that. You know I can't."

            "Scott, do it, please!" She steps forward to embrace him. He kisses her and it feels like goodbye, a goodbye that he will not accept. Her tears wet his cheeks, trickle down his chin. 

            "I can make you do it. You know I can."

            "I know, Jean. But I know you won't."

            "Don't bet on it, One-eye." Logan steps down the staired corridor, his legs taking the shallow steps three at a time. He's bleeding, but not as badly as before, when the Phoenix tried to rip his flesh from his bones, scour his body on her way to burning away his soul.

            "Wolverine," Scott says. "Where are the others? Are they coming?"

            "Nope," Logan says. "But the Shiar are. They sent Ororo and Hank back to Earth with what pieces they could find of Bobby. They tried to get me to go too, but you can see how well that worked out for 'em."

            "Scott, please," Jean begs. "You have to do it now. Logan, will you?"

            Logan regards Jean. "I can see you're serious, Jeanie. I might just love you--yes, love you--enough to actually say yes."

            "Logan, I'd kill you before I let you," Scott growls. 

            "You could try, Logan says. "But you'd just slow me down."

            "Scott, don't make me," Jean cries. The telekinetic flames have already started to manifest around her. "She's coming back!"

            Scott's hands come up to his visor. "Jean, no!" he screams. "Logan, stop me, you know the only way how."

"You're right, Summers. This ain't for you to do."

            Logan lunges on Scott. Scott leans forward into him. Both Scott and Jean scream as Logan's adamantium claws rip first the visor from his head, his eyes from his flesh.

            "Logan!" Jean screams. "How could you?" Then the flames rise up again, Jean's long red hair forms a nimbus around her, and her voice, not her own now, coos, "Thank You, James. I knew I could count on you."

            "Lady," Logan says as he turns to face the Phoenix, his claws out still. "Justice is comin' for you right now, and I'm the tip of the sword."

            He goes to instinct, plunges into her fire, and strikes. 

Just Past Now 

            Professor Charles Xavier drives his hoverchair into his study. Scott waits for him there. Scott, his oldest student, joined by three more, just months more recent.

            Scott stares at nothing. The red glasses he wears hold back nothing now, but he wears them out of habit, and to hide the ruin of what used to be his eyes. Scott stands as he hears the Professor enter. Ororo stands with him, as does Hank, who accidentally knocks over as glass of water as he does. 

            "Dr, McCoy, my ass," Hank exclaims. "These stupid mitts work on their own. I'd love to watch myself perform surgery now."

            "Henry, it is your mind that makes you a doctor, you know that," Xavier replies. "But we've had this conversation before."

            "Yes, professor," hank says, and his blue-black fur ripples at the compliment.

            "Where is Jean?" Xavier says. He looks at Scott for an answer, but he only shrugs and it is Ororo who replies. "In the office. She says she'll be here when she can; she has a great deal to prepare for the start of term."

            "The press conference is about to start," Scott says. "I hope she hurries."

"She will," Ororo assures him. "Professor, are we certain this will be as monumental of an event as you feared?"

            "You doubt me, Storm? I broke my own cardinal rule to gather this information. I picked the mind of the President herself. She will announce in less than a minute. I assume Logan is avoiding this by scheduling a training with our new recruits?'

            "The Danger Room," Scott says. "Emma is at the controls."

            Xavier sighs. "I did hope we could all be together for something so important, but I digress." He presses a button the edge of the table and the holo-display, a gift of Shiar technology, glows into life in the air over the center of the table. 

            The image of President Caroline Montgomery stares at them from over a bank of microphones.  Xavier, Scott, Ororo, and Hank lean forward in their seats to take in every word she says. Xavier closes his eyes, a prayer on his lips. But he knows it is no use. He does not believe in God anyway. 

            "The United States has long been dedicated to the pursuit of world peace," President Montgomery begins. "After World War 2, during which our nation was forced to go to war to protect the world's  people from the twin terrors of totalitarianism and genocide, we rebuilt the conquered lands of our enemies, making sure their people could regain dignity and strength, and join the nations of the world in their quest for peace."

            "Has this woman actually studied history?" Hank asks.

            _Hush_, Xavier transmits directly into Hank's mind.

            "Panama, The Congo Republic, Afghanistan, Iraq, these number among those nations whose people have been restored by the beneficence of the United States of America and her people."

            "The camera pulls back, revealing the U.N. backdrop, the globe and olive branch, as well as the heads of a madly clapping crowd.  President Montgomery waits patiently for the crowd to quiet. She is a small woman, of African descent, with short, curly black hair. She wears a plain, dark grey suit, but a gold pin in the shape of a dove decorates her lapel. 

            Her tone shifts as she continues, "This past year has been one of nearly unrelenting tragedy. One year ago, the still unexplained disturbance on the moon caused tidal shifts and Tsunamis that all but drowned our coastal cities. The waters receded, we began the process of rebuilding, and hoped the worst was over."

            "But millions died in Denver when mutants--our genetic brethren-- went to war and caused the Rockies themselves to crumble. We built the city of Remembrance and vowed to find a way to keep it from happening ever again."

            "And then we lost President Robert Kelly to an assassin's bomb." Here her voice broke, and a tear became visible just under her left eye. "An assassin who did not want the President to stand before you today, in the exact spot where I am standing, and announce to you exactly what I am about to announce. An assassin who was not interested in President Kelly's vision of a worldwide peace that was, at last, attainable."

            At these words, six figures stand and step forward to join President Montgomery.

            "President Guillaume Tuissant of France. Queen Beatrice I of Great Britain, Premier Alexei Petrov of the New Soviet Consortium, Caliph Abu Bakr Nisai of the Southwest Asian League, President Jing-Mei Chow of China, President Jerome Ubutu of the United States of Southern Africa." The camera provides a close-up of each of the heads of state as their names are said.

            "We have come together today to announce a new age in world history, a Pax Humana, uniting all the peoples of the world in the cause of peace. The Pax government, a league of Nations devoted to the vision of a world where all people are valued and free. Free from want. Free from fear, Free from prejudice, Free from hate, Free from violence, Free from war."

            The crowd rises at these words. President Montgomery waits for quiet.

"So far I hear nothing to object to," Ororo says. 'But I know there cannot help but be an ugly side to this."

            Xavier only smiles sadly.

            "The Pax will be headed by a council of seven, made up of the heads of state from each of the founding member nations. The council has chosen the United States to hold the first one year term at the head of the council, and thus it is with great honor, and with the goals and dreams of President Robert Kelly foremost in my mind, that I accept the position as the first Counselor General of the Pax."

            Over the crowd's roar, she shouts "Together we can make a new world."

            Xavier dims the display. "She's said most of it. They won't announce their final solution today."

            "What final solution is that?" Scott asks.

            "Their final solution to the mutant problem. We've learned so of it from two of our recent recruits. The rest, well . . ." He does not elucidate.

            "Well, Charles," Ororo says. "We all know why you wanted us here. Do we need to say it?"

            "No, Ororo," Xavier says. "We all know it's time to re-form the X-men."

*** * ***

            Logan watches from the window. It's two-on-two today. They've done this before, but he wants to see it again. he learns over the console, watching the jungle-temple set morph into life around his students.

            "Emma, are you online with all of them?" he asks.

            Emma Braddock responds without speaking. _Yes.  She lets Logan hear his students' nervous mental chatter before cutting them off._

            "We're just going to let them do it, this time. Listen, but don't advise."

            "All right, Logan," Emma says in her crisp British accent.

            "Thunderbird--Rogue!" Logan sub vocalizes through the mic implant in his chin. "Runaway--Nightcrawler! You're the teams. Two-on-two. Take the other team out!"

            Will Proudstar watches the jungle rise around them. "Why does Logan like this Thai jungle set so much?" he asks his partner. 

            X'ian Coy Mahn removes her black gloves. "I like this set," she says. "Lots of places to hide. She bends to touch the holographic earth. "Nightcrawler and Runaway will be through here soon. Paige is so direct, she'll run right into me, just like last time."

            "So, I get to target practice with the blue elf," Will says. he knows X'ian is right about Paige. He smells brimstone, swings around, pulling the earthfire up into his hands. Here his power is strong, the earth is all around him. A small firebolt erupts from his finger. He hears Kurt's answering yelp and smells the brimstone of his vanishing.

            Who keeps score for us?" X'ian asks with a grin.

            "Emma, as usual," Will says.

            _Don't count on it, Emma broadcasts directly into his mind._

            _I hate when you do that._

_            Just remember that I'm listening. He can almost hear her chuckle._

            "She's coming," X'ian says. Will can feel her even if he can't see her yet--his oldest friend--she pushes a breeze in front of her as she runs, twisting, jumping to  avoid branches.

            X'ian jumps into her path, but Paige is ready for her. She leaps over X'ian, lands just in front of Will, an elbow out at supersonic speed grazes his chest with an accompanying boom. The force throws Will back into the temple; his vision goes black just for an instant. Paige grins. Kurt smokes into existence just behind X'ian, grabs for her covered torso, but she twists her neck so her lips can touch his chin. Kurt falls.

            X'ian's face turns blue and a tale spins out from the base of her spine. She vanishes, then is right on top of Will. She grabs him by the shirt and takes them both away.

            They are above the trees now, and Will grabs for branches so he doesn't fall. Paige can't run up here and Kurt will be out for at least five minutes.

            "Now what?" Will asks X'ian as he balances on a solid holographic branch, waiting for the ache in his head to fade.

            "Paige got to you this time," X'ian says. She is bent over, balanced on a single thin branch, looking very much like a fuzzy blue gargoyle.        

            "The girl's finally learning refinement," Will replies. "But from here . . ." They can see Paige on the ground below them. She soothes an unconscious Kurt, then runs a rapid circuit around the danger room, through the temple. Will watches her, aims, blasts rubble into her path. She trips, flailing end over end.

            "Cocky," Will shouts down at her.

            X'ian takes advantage of the moment, teleports down and kisses her on the forehead. She zooms away as Paige falls to the ground.

            "X'ian!" Will yells. "Get me down from here."

            "Oh, just drop," X'ian yells back. She's busy porting and speeding, using all of her stolen powers at once. She is a blue-black blur between puffs of red smoke. 

            Will drops, swinging himself down on the branches of the tree, coming to ground with his feet inches away from Paige's short-cropped blonde hair.

            "Is that enough, Logan!" Will shouts. "I think we won!"

            "I'd have to agree with that assessment, kid," Wolverine's voices vibrates in Will's ear. 

            _Emma? Will asks, shouting with his mind._

            _Don't fish for compliments. It's really rather unbecoming. He is glad that Paige and Kurt are unconscious and can't see his mortified flush. _

            "All right everyone, showers, into clean uniforms. Charlie wants us in the war room in twenty minutes.

            The Thai jungle vanishes around them, replaced by gleaming steel. Kurt and Paige groan as X'ian assumes her normal form and draws on her discarded gloves.

            "You all hear that? Twenty Minutes!" Logan growls and the four scramble for the door.

*** * ***

            Jean Grey-Summers puts away her glowing datapad, watches its screen to know that it's recharging in its port. The door to her office slides open behind her. Scott. She knows it without a look, not because she can sense it, but because she doesn't know who else it would be. 

            "The professor wanted you with us to watch the press conference,' he says.

            "I know. I watched from here. And I'm very flattered that my activities on the moon helped prompt this alliance. I may have inadvertently caused the breakout of worldwide peace."

            Scott says nothing.

            "Hank told me your new ocular implants will be ready in the next couple of weeks. He really think he has it this time."

            "Jean . . ."

            "Term starts on Monday--Lesson plans have been submitted to our intranet--we have 70 students coming in starting Friday night, Scott. Dr. Reyes and Mr. Wells are all ready to go. I just have to have everything else--including Hank, I might add--ready to go before the students get here. I don't know what I'd do if we had a traditional course schedule."

            "Jean--stop!"

            "Stop what, Scott? Stop planning? If I'm going to be the headmistress of the Institute I can't afford to slack now. Haven't you been listening to me?"

            "This isn't about your being headmistress. Charles trusts you with this job for a reason, Jean. This is about you avoiding all of us, you're even avoiding Charles. Hank, Logan, Ororo, you're still one of us."

            "How could you possibly expect me to be able to be with them--all of us one happy family again? Could you just think for a minute--think of a reason doing that might be hard for me?"

            "Jean, I know. Believe me, I know." He places a hand on her shoulder, forces her to turn around so he can embrace her. She does not push away.

            "Bobby," she says. "No one will talk about Bobby. I killed him, Scott--I shattered him into brittle pieces. They couldn't even find all of him. And now everyone wants to forgive me, pretend it never happened, move on, but how can I do that?"__

            "Jean, we know it wasn't you. That's how we do it. The Shiar Imperium pardoned you. They destroyed the Phoenix, but they were wise enough to know that you were not her. She destroyed their capitol world, She killed Bobby. She caused the floods. She did. The Phoenix did. Not you."

            Now she does push away. "That sounds nice, Scott. It really does. But we both know it's not all of it. When they destroyed her, it took my powers too. That would not have happened if Phoenix were not also a part of me. No one can answer that, no one will answer that. Not even Charles. Especially not Charles."

            He lets her return to her computer screen. "Jean, don't bury yourself in work. You're not dead. You have--we have--the rest of our lives to live together. The twins . . ."

            She places a hand on her gently protruding belly. Yes, the twins. But what if they were just as dangerous as their mother?

            "Let me handle this my own way, Scott. I'll get through it. I'll keep contributing to Charles's precious dream. I just still need some time. That's all I'm asking for. 

            "All right," he says, tired of the battle. "Just don't shut me out. I married you because I wanted to be there for you. Don't shut me out."

            She listens as he leaves, then lays back in her chair, and it is all  that she can do to keep herself from weeping.        

*** * ***

            Paige and Will settle into seats around the oval table in the middle of what Logan has begun to refer to as The War room.  The floor and ceiling are made of black tile, and every wall is a holo-screen. One side of the room projects a map of the world. Glittering lights indicate areas of concentrated mutant activity. No continent is untouched, not even Antarctica. On the opposite wall, the projection is split in quadrants, for now these display the latest from four different news-feeds. 

            On the other side of the table from Will and Paige sits Kurt. He rubs at his temples still, as occasionally does Paige. X'ian reclines in the seat next to Paige, who scoots closer to Will.

            They are the first to arrive. "So much for twenty minutes," Paige says.

            "They will arrive when it is time," X'ian replies. Paige rolls her eyes.

            "Careful now," Will whispers.

            "She creeps me out anyway," Paige says. "But she's always gotta be scoldin' me. I don't like it."

            "Then be patient," he says, then grins as she smacks him on the back of the head.

            "Do we know why we are here?" Kurt asks. "I'd hoped to resume my studies after practice today. I have seminars to prepare for."

            "Maybe Xavier's finally got a mission for us," Paige says.

            The doors open and Paige's words seem to be confirmed as Ororo enters in full field uniform, her long-tailed jacket kicked out behind her, her hood down around her shoulders revealing her smooth head. Next to Ororo is Hank, lumbering along in this morning's newest form. His dark blue-black mane has already begun to shed as he walks, and his legs and feet have the thick hide and foot-tusks of a rhino. The calves of his uniform pants are unzipped to give him more room. 

            Logan joins them, in his black and khaki field uniform, Emma is with him. She's braided her hair, weaving the purple streaks growing from her temples into the plait, making the pale blonde almost look marbleized with violet. 

            "Careful, there, Will," Paige whispers. "I'm not even a telepath and I can tell what you're thinking."

            "Shut up, Paige."

            Ororo takes a place just to the right of the table's head, Hank a seat just to the left of it. 

            "Charles and Scott will be here soon," Ororo says.

            "Charlie finally have something for us to do?" Logan asks.

            "I fear he does," answers Hank.

            "We've been training for six months," Logan protests. "These kids are ready."

            Hank smiles through lion's teeth. "They're not kids, Logan. Not like we were when we started this ten years ago."

            "McCoy, to me, you're all kids."

            Charles enters, his hoverchair droning as it settles into its port. "You all know about the Pax announcement that finally came down this morning," he begins without preamble. "They have not announced the truly ugly side of all of this. In fact, if it weren't for what I know, I'd assign all of you to be the mutant arm of the Pax. The future they promise sounds ideal. But they have not mentioned their plans for mandatory genetic testing and forced mutant conscription."

            Will and Paige exchange shuddering glances. 

            "Your first mission as our New X-Men is to help destroy an even uglier side of all of that."

            "What's up, Charlie?" Logan says.

            Scott enters, stands with his arms folded behind Xavier.

            "In the Gao-Jeng province of China," Xavier begins. "Elements of the Pax think they have discovered the answer to solving the world's energy crisis . . . they have found a mutant of almost unimaginable power--we know little more about him than that. His mind is a blur to me, and he himself, let alone the Pax, does not understand what he is or how to use his powers properly."

            "So, what are we supposed to do?" Logan asks. 

            "Isn't it obvious?" Interjects Ororo.

            "I'm sending you to rescue him--get into the research station--liberate him from his shackles--Psylocke, you may need to raid his mind and block his powers until you can bring him to the Institute."

            "I'll try, Professor," Emma says. "But if you can't do it, how will I?"

            "Proximity will help. His trust. He's frightened, and he must see you as his rescuers."

            "We'll do it, Charles," Ororo says.

            "Do we know the defenses they've set up around him?" Hank asks.

            "You'll have the full uplink to peruse on your way to Gao-Jeng, Henry."

            Hank nods.

            "Well, then," Logan says as he pushes himself away from the table. "Let's go."

* * *

            The crypt glows with the fires of creation, or so it seems to Jono. Could it really contain the solution to all the problems of the world?

            "Anything yet, Chamber?" Bishop is behind Jono, watching along with him.

            _Not from him. Just the usual scrambled images. The anger is more intense, which makes him harder for me to read. Jono's ruined mouth says nothing, he speaks directly into his commander's mind.  _

            "That's to be expected," Bishop says.

            _Are we sure we're doing the right thing, Lieutenant? We're guarding him here, but I'm not sure . . ._

_            "Don't finish that sentence, Chamber. We all have to do our duty to the world. You're doing yours. I'm doing mine--this is what the world requires of him."_

            Jono shrugs. Bishop is right, he knows. They've all committed themselves to the cause of world peace. It was why he'd joined the XSE in the first place.

            But he can't get the screams out of his mind. 


	2. xgeneration 2 The Powers that Be part 2

x - generation #2

_The Powers that Be_ part 2

Baiting Armageddon

The whine of the Blackbird's VTOL engine fills the hanger. Emma Braddock can almost feel the vibrations from it. Through the window she can see Logan at the controls--his skin red in the tinted Shiar steel-glass. She tries to concentrate on the noise, listen to it, not the mental chatter emanating from her companions. She hates the rides on the Blackbird. Enclosed proximity only makes the irritant worse. She does not mean to listen, she honestly tries to ignore the stray thoughts and random emotions that flit across her senses, she even tries to block it out, but as yet she does not have that much control. 

Charles once told her she was the most powerful telepath he'd ever encountered. That's probably the problem, and even the filters he placed in her mind did not last more than a few minutes. Her own powers overcame them without her direction--they just did--they often work around her best intentions and that scares her. 

Charles joins her at the door. "Are you all right, Emma?" he asks, knowing she prefers not to mind-speak with him.

"Nervous," she says. "I hope you're right about me being up to this."

"I'm sure I am." He pats her hand. "You've already met and surpassed all of my expectations in the year we've worked together. You match me now in raw psionic power."

"But not in control," She says. "And I hope I don't accidentally push this young man into full-on mental collapse."

"I trust you, Emma. If I didn't, I'd go myself."

"I hope you're right to do so," She says. She leans closer, kisses the top of his head. "Thank you, professor. It means more than you can know."

Xavier gives her hand one more gentle squeeze. Emma looks toward the Blackbird. Hank lumbers up the ramp with X'ian. Paige and Will start toward the ramp, Paige halfway up it while Will delays, waiting for Emma.

_Oh Will,_ Emma thinks, _If only you knew who I really was._

"I think they're waiting," Charles says.

"I know," she steps away from him, turns back to look at his face, and mindspeaks _Professor, when are you going to tell them?_

_ Tell them what? _He mind-speaks back, even though both of them know that he knows what she's asking.

_Why you're really doing this? Why the X-men must be revived now._

He shrugs. _When it is time. But that's not yet. _

_ All right. _She turns and joins Will on the ramp. She says nothing to him, just smiles at him and then walks around him. 

Inside, the Blackbird has room for ten, besides the pilot and co-pilot. The passenger seats face each other, forming a horseshoe around the cabin's interior. Logan sits in the pilot's seat, Ororo in the co-pilot's. Hank sits just behind Ororo. There is a seat empty, and then another in which Kurt lounges. He is sprawled, reading his German translation Catholic Bible. Another seat is empty between Kurt and Paige. Paige's effort to ignore Emma blasts itself into Emma's brain like cannonfire. She knows just why Paige dislikes her; it's not because Paige is in love with Will, but she does feel a sense of ownership over her friend.

Will holds back. Emma takes the empty seat between Logan's back and X'ian--the two people on board it is the hardest for her to read. Will sighs and then settles into the seat next to Paige.

"Finally ready to get our first mission underway, boys and girls?" Logan growls.

"Just take us out, Wolverine," Ororo says.

"Right." The Blackbird vibrates; the hanger falls away around them. The X-men rise up into the sky. Emma watches below them, and is as always amazed at how completely the Xavier Institute vanishes, replaced by knotty slopes and old-growth forest. The Shiar cloaking so complete that not even the most sophisticated government satellites can tell the Institute exists; the same cloaking technology hides the Blackbird from discovery. 

Ororo rotates in her co-pilot's seat to face the rest of the team. "We have just over an hour until we reach Gao-Jeng. I believe Hank has the breakdown of the plan."

Hank places his glasses atop his broadening nose and pulls out his datapad. "I do," he says. "Listen . . ."

There is no reason for Jono to do this again. They know everything they need to know--the boy himself does not know how to access and channel his mutant abilities--it is all up to Dr. Richards and the rest of the Pax scientists. Bishop has told Jono to leave it alone, monitor, but not do any more than that.

But now, at three o'clock in the morning, Jonothan Starsmore finds it impossible to sleep and he is afraid he knows the reason why. Jono gets out of bed, pulls on the pants and jacket of his XSE uniform, leaving his torso bare against the chill air, his own glowing ruin of a chest and mouth to cast light for his walk. 

He can feel the boy as he gets closer to the crypt. The guards on either side of it nod at his uniform and allow him to pass. He still thinks of him as a boy, through the two of them are probably the same age. The anguish, the lack of understanding, these things mark him as a child in Jono's mind. Mentally, spiritually, he is one. 

Jono places a hand on the cold adamantium of the crypt. It is a box in the center of a warehouse. Wires and tubes connect to it, taking power away, waste away, feeding in nourishment. The containment is cruel, Jono knows. No matter what Bishop tries to convince him of, this containment is cruel. 

_Maybe I can help you, _Jono mind-speaks to the boy. _I want to help you. _He sends himself out, through the metal, his mind like a limb, still attached to the body but able to reach out. _Let me help you. I too know what it is like to be broken by my own mutation. _

Jono feels himself tugged, pulled. He is no longer inside the Pax base, no longer touching the crypt. He now crouches beside a campfire. Woodsmoke fills his nostrils and stars scatter in the sky overhead. They move above him, rolled like pebbles in ocean surf. It is all very disorienting and for a moment Jono cannot move for fear of completely losing his equilibrium. 

Orange campfire-glow lights several small tents and bedrolls arranged around the fire. The world pulses. Jono can feel the rhythm of some force he cannot identify, does not have the words for. World-force. 

Jono stands, finally, and looks around. The air is cold, colder even than the chilled steel. He has the sudden fear that the sleeping figures around the fire are not sleeping, but dead, but then one stirs and Jono relaxes.

But how could anyone survive in this cold? It is then that Jono notices the tufts of fur, black and shiny in the moonlight, that erupt from the cheek of one of the sleeping figures. The others also display strange shapes, forms just out of proportion to that of the merely human. 

Mutants, then. A camp of mutants. Jono walks around the campfire, searching for the self of the mind he walks within. 

He hears voices, a language he does not recognize, but which must be some Chinese dialect. A figure walks, points to the mountains, then in moonlit silhouette, unfurls wings and flies. The figure hangs there for a moment, black against the moon.

But then Jono hears shots--the figure folds in on itself, one wing splits off, then falls to earth.

Everyone around the campfire throws off blankets, stands, shouting, confused. More people empty the tents, mostly human in form, but some with scales, stone for skin, more with wings leap free and enter the sky.

Jono stands in the midst of the cacophony. Everyone ignores him, a few move around him, sidestepping him without notice, not even aware of his presence.

Jono spins. Within the fire he sees a shape, a small boy staring at him from within flames that have shifted tones from orange to blue. He alone of the panicked throng has noticed Jono. Jono hears screams, shots, the thud of falling bodies, howls of infants cut short in machine-gun bursts, but he does not look away from the boy within the fire. Those eyes will not let him, there's too much pain there.

"You said you'd help," the boy says in English. "Stop me." Jono is almost too surprised to respond. The boy closes his eyes, opens his hands, and becomes a being of blue white fire. 

The world is gone, and so is Jono.

Paige has spent the flight sleeping on Will's shoulder. The day has turned to night around them as they fly east, and Wolverine has not turned on the cabin lights. Will lets Paige sleep. She'll need the energy later, on the ground. Will spends his time watching Emma, who sits rigid in her seat, her eyes closed. He knows she probably senses his thoughts, but what good is it to think surreptitiously around a telepath?

There's just something about her he responds to, some need in her that he can sense. Beyond the physical, into the spiritual, he reads signs in her taught to him by his Shaman Uncle Quentin Lone Eagle. But she doesn't want him to know this, and he respects that. He wishes he had the courage to force the issue.

Paige stirs, wipes the drool from her chin with the back of her hand. "Are we there yet?" she mumbles.

"Don't know. Soon, I hope," Will replies.

"I'm worried," Hank announces. He leans close to Ororo, but speaks loud enough for everyone to hear. "Fifteen years ago in the Altun mountains an explosion left a scar in the earth nearly fifty miles long."

"And?" Logan responds. "Get to your point, McCoy."

Hank stares at his datapad. Next to Will, Paige leans forward, fully awake now. Will notices that she cannot stop tapping her foot against the cabin floor.

"Well," Hank continues. "The Chinese tried to bury this little disaster, officially blaming it on a stray meteor strike, but enough information got out that it woke up all the UFO nuts, not to mention the worldwide conspiracy crackpots. What if it wasn't a meteor? What if it was a mutant coming into his power?"

"And that same mutant is the one we're sent to rescue?" Ororo asks.

"Doesn't change anything," Logan says. "We're sent to get 'im, we'll get 'im."

"I lack your confidence, Wolverine," Hank says. "We could end up causing a disaster much worse than the one in the Altuns. Have you thought of that?"

"Of course I have. But that doesn't mean we leave him a slave, a human battery. That's not what we're about."

"I concur," Ororo says.

"So do I," Hank replies. "We just need to be careful."

"What else is new?" Logan chuckles. "We're the X-Men."

"We're almost there, aren't we Logan?" Ororo asks. "I should begin my part of the mission."

"You may want to give me a minute to slow us down and take us low," Logan replies. "I think even you would be ripped apart if you jumped out of the plane at supersonic speed."

Ororo stands and moved to the back of the Blackbird, pulling her hood up over her head. Hank joins her at the door as Logan brings the Blackbird lower to the rugged plains of the Gao-Jeng province.

"Lake Qing-Zhou is in view," Logan calls.

Hank palms open the hatch, holds on as air rushes in, pulling at him. "Bless us, Goddess," Hank says as Ororo dives from the Blackbird.

She spins, tailing toward the earth. Lightning cracks out from her hands and the Blackbird is buffeted by winds as the dark clouds gather, spilled like ink in the sky, blotting out the moon. Rain swells and lightning strikes all around them as Logan engages the VTOL drive, bringing the Blackbird to rest on the wind-swept shores of Lake Qing-Zhou.

The X-Men unstrap from their seats. "The goddess is doing her part," Logan says. "Runaway--recon!"

Paige is out of her seat and out of the hatch before Logan can finish the order.

Hanks settles back into his seat and keys his datapad. From it projects a holographic display--schematics of the Pax base. in the center of it is an oblong black spot, their target.

"Psylocke, can you get in?" Hank asks.

Emma is already trying. 'There's a telepath on duty, but his screening is weak. I can get into a guard, read his surroundings. Nightcrawler, I'll link you in--there--will that do?"

"Yes, that is very fine," Kurt says. "Who am I taking with me?"

Paige is back. "Heavily guarded, but I'm guessin' that's not a problem for us, is it?"

"Psylocke, Thunderbird, Beast, you're first," Logan says. "Runaway, Rogue, and I can wait until the second run."

Will nods.

"Wolverine," Hank interrupts. I know this isn't the best time to bring this up, but I'm changing my codename--Charles approves it--something with a little more nobility given my recent accelerating transformations."

"What is it, McCoy?" Logan huffs. "I'll call you Princess Lollipop is you want."

"Griffin," Hank says. "Call me Griffin."

"Fine--Psylocke, Thunderbird, Griffin, you're first."

Take my hand," Kurt says. Will does, as does Hank. Emma grabs onto the arms of both of them. 

Will feels warm flames and smells brimstone as they vanish.

Jono wakes, harsh light in his face. He groans, pats the space around him, sits up when his fingers touch the rough surface of an infirmary blanket. 

"Jono?" Laynia. her face appears over his, eyes deep wells of concern. "Jon?"

Jono falls back on the bed, groans again. Laynia is suited up, but Jono has no idea if morning has come. "What time is it?" he asks.

"Almost 6:00--what happened to you?"

"Sleeping Beauty awake yet?" Sam joins Laynia at Jono's bedside. "What did you think you were doing? Bishop's really pissed."

Jono swings his legs onto the floor, grasps for his jacket, which Laynia provides. He stands, lurches for the door, but the world tilts strangely and he's forced to balance himself against the edge of the bed.

"Sam's question is a good one," Laynia says. "What were you doing?"

_I was seeing what I could find out, _Jono replies. _Get off my back. This is my job, you know._

"Your job is to follow orders. I told you to monitor and instead you went in and tried to raid his mind."

Jono buttons up his jacket, squares his shoulders against Bishop's glare. _I was trying to help._

"Help by following orders. Now. We have invaders."

"Invaders? Who?" Laynia asks.

"Just come with me."

Jono, Laynia, and Sam follow Bishop out of the infirmary and down to the main section of the base, where the rest of XSE Alpha waits for them on the catwalk that overlooks the crypt. 

Marrow leans on the railing, sharpening a bone knife against her wrist. Alexei turns to look as his sister, Laynia. He has already assumed his great Russian bear form. 

"An aircraft has landed, just as the storm blew in outside from a clear night. I think we know what this means."

"What do they want?" Marrow asks.

"Isn't it obvious?" Sam replies. "Think my sister's with them?"

"We don't even know they really exist," Bishop says. "That said--we're here to protect the subject, and we'll do it. You all know what needs to be done."

"Cannonball to the rescue, Sir," Sam stiffens and gives Bishop a playful salute , then is in the air, leaving a hot contrail behind him as he aims for the vent window that allows him access.

Jono readies his own bio-blast, the telekinetic aspect of his psionic powers, which allows him to excite the air molecules around him with such rapidity that they erupt and explode with directed force. The power wells up within him as his psionic net is extended. He can feel his teammates around him, their selves like shadows glimpsed through a veil.

Where will they come, these invaders? Are they the X-Men, resurrected from the ashes of Charles Xavier's dream? If so, who will they be? Paige and Will -- Runaway and Thunderbird -- their old teammates? What others?

Jono feels a disruption in the psionic field, a rift opening just in front of the crypt--white hot power blazes through, a telepathic mask, random thoughts cast into the room like psionic shrapnel to hide from notice the exact forms and number of these invaders.

"XSE Alpha--Focus!" Bishop shouts. Jono links with his teammates--it takes almost all of his power to do it. He keeps them tied together, roped against the mental blizzard which is even now sending the guardsmen scrambling around the base, shouting, shooting blindly.

Laynia grabs Jono and together they descend, gliding down on a cloud of darkness. Jono runs to the crypt, for the mass of beings his mind will not quite allow him to see, and blasts.

Hank leaps out of Kurt's brimstone cloud. Emma clutches at her head, immediately letting go of Will's arm. Reluctantly, Will lets her. He feels connected, pulls the earthfire up into his hands. Hank's return to the ground shakes the floor, extending the thunder's rumble. The entire building vibrates like a struck bell as Ororo's lightning volley strikes home.

"Kurt, Hank, do your thing," Emma shouts. "I'm masking us as well as I can."

Will jumps in front of Emma. It is his task to protect her and he means to execute the role well. Hank is on top of the crypt, holding a radiation monitor. Kurt is gone again, sent to fetch the remainder of the team.

Pure force, orange heat, blasts Will, knocking him off his feet. he rolls, narrowly missing taking Emma down with him. He leaps into a crouch and sees Chamber--Jono--standing in front of him. Jono stares as if trying to pick out Will's features, but Emma blocks him with her masking.

Will throws out his arm, letting loose a ball of fire. It slams into Chamber's side, but Jono tilts to avoid it, drawing it into his own energy.

_Thunderbird, I thought so,_ Jono sends, and Will winces at the knowledge that he's revealed his identity. Nothing else can be done, so Will shouts back to him, "Chamber--why are you here?"

_Orders, friend, _Jono sends back. This time he does not respond with a bio-blast, but Will's vision is blotted out as pure black pervades the area around the crypt.

Hank curses. "I can't read the meter!"

Lightning finally breaks through the roof of the building, bringing the storm with it. Will can feel the force, see the flash, but it does not cut the darkness for long. Will's arms are pinned behind him suddenly by a smoothly muscled form, and he feels a sharp pressure on his neck. Even without sight, Will knows the knife is made of razor-sharp bone. 

"Marrow," Will says. "Will you stop it and just listen to us?"

"And what is it exactly you will say?" She hisses in his ear. "You're a traitor, Proudstar, and I should gut you where you stand. Wise move, that wasn't, putting yourself back in the hands of the XSE."

"Shut up!" He elbows her in the stomach, throws fire into her face, rolls to avoid her slashing response. He smell's Kurt's arrival, feels Paige rush past. How can she see to run so fast?"

Then the darkness is gone, Laynia on the floor, X'ian standing over her. The darkness coalesces around X'ian's hands.

Marrow stands over Will. He kicks at her and she falls into Logan, who pops his claws out, holds them to her neck. She curses and kicks, but he manages to hold her.

Kurt is next to Hank, but Will has lost track of Emma and Paige completely.

Jono is at the edge of the crypt now--his arms spread wide and his back against it in a posture of defense. Bishop leaps down from the catwalk, blasting with his force-guns. Hank and Kurt fall; Kurt teleports as his feet leave the metal and his is immediately back where he was. X'ian is down as Bishop rushes forward. Will grabs onto Chamber, but is greeted with a bio-blast that sends him reeling. Paige rushes at Bishop, but he absorbs her speed, the force of her full-throttle approach, and sends it back at her, sending her into the wall to collapse in a heap.

Logan stands his ground, Marrow still in one arm. Will knows better than to throw his fire at Bishop. It will only make his former commander more powerful.

Logan lunges, dropping Marrow, drawing blood from Bishop's leg. Emma screams, clutching once more at her head, and Chamber falls too. Bishop sends all his force out, lifting Will off the ground, throwing him into the crypt. Will reaches out for Emma as his head hits the edge and everything vanishes in a hot black flash. 

Emma has to drop the psionic masking as the pain stabs into her head. It isn't working anyway. The XSE's telepath, Chamber, the man with the open psionic energy well in the middle of his body, is nowhere near as powerful as she is, and she can tell the psychic trauma of the strange mutant's call has ripped him from his body.She closes her eyes, falls to the ground at Will's side, and follows him.

She's inside a mind like none other she's ever experienced, Chamber in front of her, twisting, flailing in some psychic wind. She manages to catch the edge of his coat and anchors them both to some image she can catch in the mind around them.

And immediately wishes she hadn't. All around them are bodies, twisting and contorting as they burn, frozen in their moment of ultimate agony, the fire that takes them a hot blue-white.

But it is a still image, not a living moment, otherwise Emma is sure she and Chamber's minds would both be seared away. Chamber pants, and lays on the burning ground.

_You saved me_, he sends

_Of course I did. Do you know where we are?_

_ Inside his mind. The subject's. I've been here before._

_ That's why he called us back?_

Their telepathic exchange is halted by the arrival of a child. He's about five years old, dark eyes under short black hair.

He mouths the words, "Stop me."

And the world vanishes in white-hot pain.

Next: A Scar in the World

__


	3. xgeneration 3 The Powers that Be part 3

x - generation #3

The Powers That Be part 3 

_A Scar in the World_

Ororo rides waves of air, swims through them, clutches cloud-stuff between her fingers. The power is glorious and she feels just a little guilty about enjoying it so much. But it's always been her dilemma, the dichotomy that directs her life along two divergent paths at the once. Is she a serene goddess, or a feisty weather-witch? Though she tries to present the goddess's face to the world, and manages to fool everyone but, probably, Charles, at heart she knows she is still that twelve-year-old thief roaming the streets of Cairo.

These days it's only air that she steals, and wind, and lightning. She rides up within a storm cloud, she can barely see for the dark and the wet black clouds in her face. She feels energy, pulls it, the electricity collected in the hills of the Gao-Jeng province, forces it into the clouds and then down again, finding the Pax base. Crack!

She pulls it again, sends it down. The power courses through her and for a moment she knows that she'll be hurled down with it, but then it releases her--she has won again--and she sends the glee from her victory along to speed its passage.

No other sensation, spiritual or sensual, could be so glorious!

She seldom shares the sky. Of her current colleagues, only Henry and X'ian have any hope of flight, and that only occasionally. Jean used to fly with her, but no more. Though she misses the Jean she used to know, the Jean that would spin and pirouette and veritably glow with the joy of her power, she has to admit that she actually prefers not to share the sky with anyone.

But right now she must. An intruder approaches to interrupt her reverie. He barrels toward her with all the grace of a shot rubber band, trailing fire and smoke behind him that are immediately absorbed by the clouds, dispatched by winds.

He comes at her, fists out. Does he expect by this strategy to knock her out of the sky? She nearly laughs out loud as she evades him, gliding around the boy easily. She twists, spirals, dances around him, keeping pace with him.

She looks into his face for the space of a lightning finger-snap. Familiar eyes, strong cheekbones, curly hair swept back by the wind. Almost-Paige. Paige's brother, Cannonball. 

She rounds him again, delivering a gentle lightning-bursts to his posterior. He howls, twists, plummets for a moment then finds himself again and lunges for her.

She lets him grip the edge of her coat before she forces him back on the wind. They are above the clouds now, the moon casting black shadows in the folds of the storm.

"I'm gonna shut down this storm," Cannonball shouts at her, completely oblivious to the fact that he's being toyed with.

"You think you will?" He rockets toward her, she brings the wind up around him, creates a cyclone-spiral that takes his speed and energy and directs it upward, toward the stars. He flies up, up, until the wind fades and he continues under his own power. But then he's too high--his mutation grants him a limited invulnerability, but when the air is too thin he passes out like anyone else and he falls.

Ororo curses as she watches him plummet back into the clouds and dives after him, pulling winds up from the ground to slow his fall. She closes her eyes against the dark, the wet, feels rain slick off her leather hood, her overcoat. She finds the boy in the underbelly of the clouds, in the place where the rain collects to fall. She grabs him by the collar of his XSE jacket, hears his yelp as the sudden arrest of his fall snaps him back to consciousness. 

He looks up at her as the two of them hover there. He takes in great gulps of air, restoring his lungs until he has enough air to blurt "you--you could have let me fall!"

"I could have," She says. "But I didn't. Remember that, and remember that your uniform does not make you invincible."

Cannonball's face twists and for a moment Ororo thinks he is about to spit in her face. "You ain't my mama--ain't your job to teach me."

"True," she says, and lets go of him.

Cannonball howls, then engages his power. At the exact moment he does a deeper thunder reverberates below them. The Pax base splits open like an egg, spilling forth blue-white light.

"Oh, Shit!" Cannonball yells. "Paige!" He rockets toward the base, and Ororo follows.

Kurt feels heat beneath his feet, and leaps from the crypt, teleporting as he reaches the apex of his acrobatic arc. When he returns, he is on the ground, crouched, panting, facing the crypt.

It erupts with blue-white fire, the heat from it singes the blue fur on his face. Will, Emma, and the XSE agent called Chamber lie at the base of the crypt, about to be consumed by the fire. Kurt teleports again, straddles Emma's prone back, grabs Will's arm and Chamber's leg and takes all of them away. 

Now they are in the base's corner, further away from the crypt, rain pouring in from Ororo's lightning hole sizzles and is boiled into steam. Hank holds his sensor in his hand and runs for Kurt on his rhino-legs.

"I don't know what's about to happen, but it's not going to be gentle," Hank bellows.

X'ian is still standing over Darkstar. Hank shouts at her to run, but she merely stands as the white sphere expands, threatening to absorb her.

Around her hands darkness coils, coalesces, erupts. She forms a cloud of it, then a wall, which for a moment hides the star-heart that is forming in the center of the base.

"Rogue, get back!" Logan shouts, and runs for her, but she will not be moved, even as the energy cracks the darkness, shatters it.

"Mein Gott!" Kurt hisses. He teleports, grabbing X'ian, Logan, and Darkstar, and takes them back to where the others have gathered. 

"What the hell's happening, Bishop?" Logan growls at the XSE's commander.

"How should I know. We're just security. I've paged the techs, but--"

"Let me guess, they've got better places to be just now, right? Well, they're the smart ones, then. So, what do we do to shut this thing down?"

"Evacuate the base," Bishop says, apparently without notice of the scores of soldiers already running for the holes blown in the base's walls.

Paige stirs, sitting up in horror to leap and land next to Kurt. Ursa Major cradles his unconscious sister in his great, furred arms.

Marrow stands almost arm-in-arm with Logan, their earlier antagonism forgotten.

"Will," Paige pats at her friends face, trying to wake him up. "Will, we need you."

Kurt crouches, bent over on the opposite side from Paige. "She's right, Will. We need you. Paige--part of Will's mutation is to absorb energy, is this not correct?"

"Right, I think."

"How much?" Logan asks. "How much do you think he can stand?"

"Let me," X'ian says, her hands out to caress the skin on Will's brow.

"Get away from him," Paige snaps, and elbows X'ian in her covered midriff. X'ian reels backward.

"Runaway, I'm not saying I don't understand your objection, but it may be the only way," Logan says.

"Nobody uses his powers but him!" Paige shouts. "Got that, leech? He'll wake up, I know it."

And he does, suddenly, spitting, coughing, rubbing at his head. "What?" he starts. "Paige, what . . .?" He sees the white fire, sees Hank, monitoring, slowly backing away from it. "Emma," he screams.

"Relax, Thunderbird," Logan says. "She's right here, but it might be up to you to save her, save all of us. The world too, if you want the bonus points."

Will stands, shaky, but his concentration on the energy. He knows instantly what's required of him. He's never tested the limits of his power. But this . . . this must be beyond him. He steps forward anyway, brushes past Hank, goes to the white. He thinks of Emma, of Paige, of his lost sister, Danielle. He puts his palms out, the edges of his fingertips touch searing heat. He pulls that heat into himself, feels it fill the empty spaces in his cells, boils the moisture there. Oh God, it hurts . . .

The blue-white fire is all around them pressing in, but the boy seems to be keeping it away from them. Emma has the feeling that she is in a fishbowl sunk into a lake of fire, but she can't even feel heat; the fire is simply there. 

She calms herself, forces down the panic that will lead to a complete loss of what little control she has. What's happening to her body out there? It's a question she cannot afford to consider.

Chamber kneels before the boy. _Who are you? Are you the one who did this? _

"Why can't you stop me?" the boy wails.

"What is your name?" Emma asks. "Who . . ."

"Chen-Yao," the boy says. "Xorn. They call me Xorn--call me Xorn."

"All right, Xorn," Emma says. "How can we stop you? Tell us what to do and we'll do it."

Xorn looks around them. "Mother, Father, burned . . . dead."

_It's not your fault, Xorn, _Chamber sends_. I saw what happened._ Chamber looks to Emma; he's addressing her now. _Soldiers, they came, they started shooting, they killed some of them and probably meant to kill the rest._

"Send it," Emma replies. "Why waste time with the pretense of speech. We're both telepaths."

Emma sees what Chamber saw on his earlier foray into Xorn's mind. She sees the sleepers, the soldiers, the falling flyers. She sees the child in the flames--feels the cold, then the heat, and she remembers the disaster in the Altun mountains and knows with certainty that Hank was right. 

"We've got to help him get control," Emma announces, leaving this vision behind. "Chamber, you do understand what's happened here?"

Chamber nods, _I think so_.

"This child--he came into his power when he was not even six years old. Of course he lost control of it."

_That does not answer the question, what do we do?_

Emma wants desperately to send out a telepathic flare to Professor Xavier--he could be listening on Xerebro--but when she tries she realizes she's blocked. Something in this boy's mind keeps her locked in. 

"What did they do to you?" She asks Xorn.

"Look," he says, and she does.

She is strapped to a table, wrapped in asbestos-lined sheeting. Men stand over her, a shaven-headed telepath leans over her as well, her cold hands tracing Emma's own seared scalp. Needles, scanners, metal scraping her skin, peeling it away, tubes linked into her muscles, feeding chemicals into her bloodstream.

Words in Chinese. "Keep this boy alive, he will help us win the world."

Horror revisited upon horror. Years in a cage, urinating, defecating in a pit. Human visitors that tremble at her gaze. A woman--chosen on purpose to look like mother--who is thrown into the cage to hold him, comfort him, but who can't get past her fear at her power, disgust at her seared visage. More experiments, more tests, spun in an accelerator. A man in a general's uniform--"again and again" he shouts "until he can give us the power we need!" Cigar smoke blown into her face.

Photos of family, friends, people in the camp, the soldiers wearing civilian clothes, arms around families, beautiful wives, small children, pictures set afire before her.

"You did this--you killed them! You burned them, they died in agony, gasping boiling air, hair singed off, skin blistering--died slowly and you did it! You killed them! You killed them all! There is only one way to redeem yourself, only one way to be anything else than the monster you were born. Give us your power, use it for the good, for the world and then perhaps you will be worth something!"

When it is over, Emma falls to her knees in front of the boy. Xorn looks at her with steely eyes. Emma embraces him, weeps onto his shoulder. "I am sorry. I am so sorry . . ."

Will finds himself in the pain after a while. His mind comes back from the heat and he realizes that he is about to burst and that he must do something to avoid the breakdown of his cells, the diffusion of his own body in the expanding sphere of energy. He needs to redirect this power.

"Please. Let there be no planes," he whispers to himself. "Stay out of the way, Storm." He backs away, keeping one hand against the sphere, points the other toward the crumbling ceiling. The energy comes in one arm, uses his body as a conduit, and shoots up into the sky.

The rest of the roof collapses at the force. He fights to keep his concentration as debris rains down around him. 

"Will, how are you doing?" Hank asks.

"I'm handling it," Will replies through gritted teeth. "Get everyone out of here before this kills them all. The base won't stand."

"What can we do, Will, to help you?" Hanks asks. "Surely you can't stand this for long."

"Just do what I said, Hank," Will says. "Get out! I'll hold it back as long as I can." He shouts to be heard over the roar of the energy entering and leaving his body.

Cannonball and Storm return, together. Cannonball drops to the floor, appraises the situation, finds his sister, and visibly relaxes. Storm comes up to stand between Will and Hank. Hank explains everything they know, but Will can't hear exactly what he says.

Ororo brings the clouds in so the dull force of the storm is above the sphere. It's obvious she intends the water to be cooling, but it's not helping and Will tells her so. 

She moves the water so a cooling stream in running over him. "Thank you," he grunts.

Behind them, Paige, Ursa Major, Kurt, and Bishop are busy moving unconscious soldiers out of harm's way. Kurt grabs three or four at a time, teleports, deposits them outside on the muddy lakeshore. Paige speeds around, picking up bodies, barely letting them slow her as she carries them outside. Ursa Major takes them on his great bear-shoulders and lumbers outside.

X'ian and Wolverine stand together, watching. Darkstar sits beside them, slowly coming back to herself. X'ian has long since relinquished her darkness powers.

"It strikes me," Logan says. "That we're all just standing here waiting for the end of the world. Why aren't we loading up the Blackbird and getting the hell out of here?"

"You would leave Will and Emma here to do this on their own?" X'ian asks.

"Nope. That's why we're still here. That and McCoy wants to watch. This kid left a crater in the mountains once--or so Hank thinks--what chance do we have not to end up fused to the bottom of another one."

"Wolverine," X'ian says. "If I take Will's powers, it might enable me to go in, find the boy, take his powers, and then I can stop this thing before it gets any more out of hand."

"You get points for Moxie, Rogue, but how do we know you'll be able to control it any better than he can--it's too much power, that's the problem. It'll be your problem too and I don't want you to be the one I have to kill to stop it."

"Could you do that? Do you think killing the boy would stop it?"

"I'd do it, but I think being reduced to ash is something even my healing factor would have trouble keeping up with."

"Maybe if I--"

"Not yours to do, Rogue," Logan says. "We'll see this thing through to the end. You don't have to save the day, that's up to others to do."

"Who? Will? He'll be burned out soon, reduced to ash himself."

Logan points to the plume of starfire shooting up into the sky. "I don't think so, but that may just be hope talking."

"You think?" She asks.

"Besides," Logan says. "There's Emma--we don't know what she's working on, but she could save us yet, turn this kid off at his source."

Emma takes the boy by the hand, beckons for Chamber to follow, and together they walk into the fire. The protective bubble moves with them, so they are not destroyed, but Emma fights back a wave of nausea anyway, as she expects the bubble to drop, and for the fire to rush in at any second. It always amazes her that, even though she is now just metal energy and personality, merely thought patterns unattached to any physicality, her mind reacts to stimuli and processes her responses in exactly the same way it would if she were actually still inside her body. It's annoying and comforting at the same time, especially since she has no idea what is happening to her body outside. 

The boy walks slowly, but deliberately. He seems to look at nothing but his own feet, even while the fire around them slowly fades and becomes a long grey corridor with a series of doors open on either side. Xorn does not look into any of them, but Emma does. Through each view she sees almost the same repeated scene. Xorn, huddled in a corner; Xorn, standing, looking up at the ceiling; Xorn, sifting through the remnants of half-burned photographs; Xorn, rocking back and forth, singing an old song to himself. In each image, he is a different age, but still resides within the same, bleak cell. He is not the intact boy that guides her by the hand, but wears a face ravaged by fire and grief. Tears well up inside her again, but she fights them back; tears will not help him. Right now he needs her strength. He needs her to be strong enough to help him free himself. 

Chamber makes no comment as they pass. In fact, Emma has to seek him out to know that he is still with them. At last they come to it, a dark pit cut into the floor at the end of the corridor. They boy stops at its lip and looks expectantly at Emma.

She leans at its edge and peers down into it. 

"Is this it?" She asks him. "Is this the hole they opened up inside of you?"

Chamber joins her. _I'm trying to keep up as best as I can, but this is beyond me. What are we looking at?_

"They tried everything," Emma responds. "They tried physical tests, then they went for the mental. They decided that his powers erupted in a time of great pain and fear, so they called in their pet teeps and they forced him to live in that moment, over and over again. It worked. They got his power, but you can't do that to a person without opening up some nasty wounds in the mind. That's what we're looking at."

_So, we close this and it just stops?_

Emma shrugs. "I hope so."

_Your confidence is breathtaking._

"I'm going inside, I need to destroy whatever auto-loop they installed. You stay here with Xorn."

_What do you expect me to do?_

"Good question. Use your own judgment."

Chamber curses, then grins. _Go, do it. Save the world._

Emma leaps inside, into the black.

At least it is black, and cool at that. She'd feared she'd be jumping into fire, and this time without Xorn's protection. But as she plummets, then floats, then finally lands on a dim, pliant surface, her fear leaves her and she focuses once again on her rage against what has been done to a terrified mutant child. 

The surface beneath her glows pale blue and it is the only source of light. She realizes that she is walking on water-skin, and blue and white bursts of fire swim within it. Is this the well of power they boy has access to? If it is, his power might well be unlimited. 

But that's not what she's here to assess. She's not sure what she's looking for exactly, but she'll know it when she sees it. 

And then she sees it.

A young woman, shaven-headed, grimaces, holding in place a long spike on the surface of the skin. She leans against the staff, exhausted.

"Who are you?" Emma calls to her.

The woman moans, but no answer is forthcoming.

"Are you the one torturing him?" Emma asks. "You're a mutant--why would you do something like this to one of your own kind?"

Again, the woman gives no answer. Exasperated, Emma approaches her. "Very well, this will be easy." She reaches out to touch the spike. She moves it and the world quakes. The woman hisses. 

_Emma, _Chamber says, _do what you have to do quickly, please. He's going nuts!_

Emma grabs hold of the spike with both hands, pulls it out.

She feels psychic energy flowing through it, around it, releasing. The woman heaves and tried to knock Emma away, but Emma is fresher and stronger. It is no contest.

The woman falls back, dissolving into mist before her back can even touch the surface.

Emma continues to pull out at the spike. She meets resistance, but it only forces her to yank on it harder.

_Emma, please._

Finally, when she has pulled out enough that it is almost three times her own height above her, she feels the last bit give way and break free. The spike falls at her side, bouncing on the surface before it too dissolves and is gone.

_Emma, what just . . . _ Chamber begins, but does not finish. She realizes why as she tries to walk, but her legs are no longer strong enough to carry her, her hands dissolve , and soon the rest of her is gone too. 

Will feels the whole world pulsing through him. This is enough, he has taken all he can and soon he will break apart, boil away cell by cell and be sent as a mist up into the stars along with this arc of power. 

But then the sphere contracts. At first he fears it does so only to gather power to burst out again, absorbing him completely this time, but to his astonishment, it contracts again, shrinks further, until it loses contact with his hand and the last of the energy in his body bursts upward, leaving his body. His knees buckle under him and he collapses. Hank catches him, and lowers him gently to the ground. 

Steam continues to rise from his body at Ororo's continuous rain storm. With chagrin, Will realizes that his clothes have burned away, so intense was the energy. Logan and Paige are at his side immediately. Hank calls for a blanket, which Bishop orders Ursa Major to supply.

Will wraps his arms around his up-pulled knees and closes his eyes as waves of nausea pass over him. 

Ursa Major arrives with the blanket; Ororo halts the rain and the cold air pouring in from the broken roof draws up goosebumps on Will's skin. Hank takes the blanket from from Ursa Major and wraps it around Will. Will is taken by a sudden chill and shudders there in the wrappings. Paige and Hank busy themselves trying to warm him. 

The glowing blue-white sphere has collapsed entirely now, reduced to a soft glow from within the melted adamantium slag that is all that is left of the crypt. Logan and X'ian step toward it warily, accompanied by Bishop and Marrow. 

The boy's body glows. He is of human form, but he does not seem to be made of flesh. His skin is made of light. Around his head a nimbus of blue flame flickers gently. No eyes, nose, mouth, can be made out of the place where his face should be, and there is no way to tell if he is awake, no way to tell whether or not he lives. 

"Well," Logan says. "I don't know what happened, but I'm glad it did."

"You people need to get out now and leave this to us," Bishop growls. "He's our responsibility."

"You're insane, Bishop! Can you stop being a good little nazi for five minutes and think about what you're doing?"

"Logan," Bishop begins, along with a lung-suffering sigh. "You never could just shut up and follow orders could you?"

Logan laughs. "That's exactly what I'm talking about. You think we're going to let you take this kid and put him back in a box?" His claws pop out, framing his eyes as he stares at Bishop. "Think again."

Bishop rolls his eyes. "Relax, Logan. We can work this out."

_Can we? _ Chamber is standing now, wobbly on his legs, but standing. Ursa Major wraps his arm around Chamber, his hairy paws holding him up by the undersides of his arms. 

"Chamber," Bishop sighs, "You all right, mate?"

_I'm fine, but we can't support this, Bishop. This is not a service to the world. _ He dumps the torture memories given him by Emma into Bishop's mind.

Bishop reels. Laynia comes up on the other side of Bishop, balances him. Bishop sits down suddenly, and Chamber keeps transmitting as Bishop leans over and vomits onto the floor. He growls, "You can stop now. I get it."

"Good," Emma continues for Chamber. "You didn't know, did you, exactly what the Pax had done?"

Bishop shakes his head. 

"You mind telling us, Psylocke?" Logan says. "Some of us are still a little confused here."

"Please," Hank says.

"They raided a mutant camp in the Altuns," Emma explains. "Slaughtered them, killed this boy's family. The trauma woke up his powers. When the rubble was cleared, they decided he'd be an excellent source of energy, but he couldn't channel it for them on command. They called in their telepaths to keep him in that moment of shock and pain, an eternal loop, so they could get at the power.

Hank shudders.

"That's barbaric," Ororo spits.

"So, what do we do with him?"

Hank has moved to the boy's side. "I don't know how to take his pulse or to wake him up, but we should be able to come up with some type of containment, or wrapping, so we can get him back to the institute, at least. There has to be something here . . ."

Logan looks at Bishop, who merely shrugs. "Do it," he says. "As far as we're concerned, the kid died here today."

Emma leans over Xorn, who is laying on a stretcher about to be rolled into the tiny cargo bay of the Blackbird. Hank has managed to make a suit for him so the heat he generates does not cause the plane to explode en route to Westchester, but Hank watches the monitor readings nervously.

_You're going to be all right, Chen-Yao, _ she sends to him. _We're going to take you to a safe place, I promise._

_ "_Thank you," she hears, but not in her mind. She wonders how it is possible that he is able to vocalize as Hank wheels him up the ramp.

She turns around and finds herself face to face with Will. He is still wrapped in a blanket, wet hair plastered to his forehead. He smiles sheepishly at her startled expression.

"Didn't know it was possible to surprise you," he says. She laughs in spite of herself.

"It's not, generally. I guess I was distracted. I hear you saved us all--drained the power and shot it out into space. I had no idea you could do that . . . "

"You saved us," Will responds with a shrug. "I just did what I needed to do. Glad I could help."

"I could have done nothing if I was burned to a crisp."

"Listen," Will adds. "This is none of my business, but you did something to Bishop, didn't you? He agreed to this plan way too easily. Even if he believed what Jono showed him-- to immediately give us custody? That wasn't him."

"I helped him along," she admits. "Under the cover of Chamber's mind-dump. That's not something I like to do, but he . . . he'd already been through so much."

"I understand. I think you did a good thing."

"Thank you," she brushes the hair back from her face and tries to avoid looking into his eyes, knowing what she'll find there. "I'm meant to tell Logan we're ready to go," she whispers and steps around Will.

Will watches her go, then walks up the ramp alone.

The X-men are loaded, save for one. Paige Guthrie stands at the foot of the ladder, contemplating the figure of her brother as he stands, obviously ignoring her, working clean-up alongside Laynia and Alexei. 

This is stupid, she can't leave it like this.

She is at his side in one quarter of a heartbeat. "'Scuse me, y'all," she says to Laynia and Alexei as she grabs Sam by the shoulder. "I need my idiot brother for five seconds." She takes hold of his jacket and drags him away at lightning speed.

She finds a free, rubble strewn space outside the crumbling base wall and throws him down in the mud. She stands over him, one foot planted on his chest, pressing him down into the squelching mud. She leans into his face, finger poking at his chin as she exclaims, "now you listen to me, Sam Guthrie--I know you're mad at me, that you think I'm a traitor and that I'm a criminal and all of that garbage, but I'm still your sister and I don't mean to let you ignore me."

Sam grins and breaks into a chuckle, which only infuriates Paige more. "What is so blasted funny?" she shouts.

"You," Sam laughs. He brings up his knees, hits her leg with the side of his leg, dumping her onto the mud beside him. He grabs her, holding her so she can't get up and starts to tickle her.

"Sam, no -- ow!" Paige shouts, angry at first and then laughing along with him. "That's not fair."

"Weak," he says, then lets go of her. he sits up. She does too and leans into him.

"I know you did what you thought you had to do," Sam says. "I think you're wrong, of course, but I understand it."

"Oh thank you, great wise elder brother of mine," Paige says mockingly.

"Now you just accused me of all sorts of evil opinions, and I'm just trying to set you straight. Don't make fun." 

"You're right, I'm sorry. Sure you won't join me? It'd be fun. You should see the digs."

"Nope. You know why. Will all right?"

She sighs. "Yes and no. The Pax killed his family, Sam. How would you be?"

"He thinks they did, but I still can't see it," Sam replies. "He found his sister yet?"

Paige shakes her head. "Not a trace."

"Well," Sam says. "If I was Will--and I thought what he thinks--well, I reckon I would do it too. Just be careful, all right?"

"Of course," she says, and hugs him. "You too."

"Watch the TV in the next couple of days. Director Cassidy is actually going to admit we exist."

"Really? They're owning up to y'all?"

"You'll see. We'll do good, Paige. It's the only way to make this work out right."

"Maybe I will see," she says, "And maybe you will."

She stands up, heads back to the blackbird while Sam brushes the mud from his uniform.

Emma sits with her head resting against her arm, which is draped around the back of her seat, reaching out to Xorn. Together, the two of them ride a memory. Night, stars rolling in the pulse of worlds, and a woman--Mother?--who holds them both against the dark.

Next: Pandora 


End file.
